Labour MP Michael Meacher: When are the banks going to be reformed?

Michael Meacher,Labour MP for Odlham West and Royton writes about our proposal on his blog:

“It is astonishing that the banks, having cost the country £68bn in bailouts plus an additional £850bn in loan guarantees, asset protection schemes and enhanced liquidity, have not been reformed in any way in structure, pay, bonuses or lending.  ….

An ingenious new proposal has just been put forward by 2 NGOs, the New Economics Foundation and Positive Money, which deserves strong support.

At root it involves two reforms. One is that the bank payments system is separated from risky lending activity, so that the failure of investments cannot damage the essential bank role of providing payments to depositors.   This would have prevented the crash of 2007-8; only the investors would have suffered the consequences of their own recklessness and excesses, not the taxpayers.   The second is that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)  should influence money supply, not by the indirect and uncertain method of setting interest rates, but directly through the creation of new money when necessary, though only within strict constraints to avoid inflationary and deflationary pressure.   That would effectively reverse the privatisation of the money supply which has existed since the 1844 Banking Act, but which the banks have colossally abused.”

Read the full article:

http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2011/03/when-are-the-banks-going-to-be-reformed/